running through his loop of images from that night.
“You’re the ballplayer,” he says. “I seen you there. You were a pro.”
“That’s right. For about ten minutes.”
“You got a tape recorder?” he asks.
“No, but I’ve got a pad. I’ll take careful notes for now.”
“Good. Let me hit the bathroom. Then maybe I got a story that could save that tall black boy.”
I wrestle my legal pad out of my case and hurriedly scribble a list of key questions in my barely legible
shorthand.
Stay calm,
I tell myself,
and
listen.
I’ve been lost in my notes, and Manny still isn’t back when the waiter drops the food on the table. I twist
around, and I see that the bathroom door is wide open.
I jump out of my chair and run like a maniac to the street.
I’m just in time to see Manny Rodriguez hop into a cab and roar away up Tenth Avenue. He finger-waves
out the back window at me.
Beach Road
Chapter 49
Loco
THERE’S A GRAY, pebbly beach on the bay side of East Hampton where on Sunday afternoons the
Dominicans, Ecuadorians, and Costa Ricans play volleyball. During the week, they put in seventy hours
mowing lawns, clipping hedges, and skimming pools. At night they cram into ranch houses that look
normal from the street but have been partitioned into thirty cubes. By Sunday afternoon, they’re ready to
explode.
These games are wild. You got drinking, gambling, salsa, and all kinds of over-the-top Latin drama. Every
three minutes or so two brown bantamweights are being pulled apart. Five minutes later they’re patting
each other on the back. Another five minutes, they’re swinging again.
I’m taking in this Latin soap opera from a peeling green bench fifty yards above the fray.
It’s six fifteen, and as always, I’m early.
It’s no accident. This is part of the gig, the required display of
fealty and respect.
Which is fine with me. It gives me time to light my cigar and watch the sailboats tack for home at the
Devon Yacht Club.
I should cut back. The Davidoff torpedo is my third this week. But what’s life without a vice? What’s
life
with
a vice? Did you know Freud smoked half a dozen cigars a day? He also died of mouth cancer, which I
like to think was poetic payback for telling the world that all every guy wants to do is kill his father
and boff his mom. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t need to know that.
Speaking of authority figures, a drumroll please, because here comes mine-
BW
-and he’s right on time, eleven minutes late.
With his three-hundred-dollar Helmut Lang jeans, torn and faded just right, and his God-knows-how-
expensive light-blue cashmere hoodie and week-old growth, he’s looking more like a goddamn weekender
every day. But who’s got the stones to tell him? Not me, bro, and they call me Loco for a reason.
“What’s up?” asks BW, but not in the convivial way most people use it. Out of BW’s mouth, it sounds
more like “what’s your problem?” or “so what’s your problem now?” But this time it’s not just
my
problem, it’s
our
problem, which pisses him off ten times more.
“Apparently, we had company,” I say. “Out behind Wilson’s house.”
“Oh, yeah? Who told you that?”
“Lindgren.”
“That sucks.” For all his peccadilloes, BW has an impressive ability to cut to the chase.
Down in the sand, a drunk volleyballer is pointing at a ball mark and screaming bloody murder in either
Spanish or Portuguese.
“What should I do now, boss?”
“Whatever you think is best.”
“Whatever
I
think is best, BW?”
“And let me know when you’ve done it.”
Then, like a puff of smoke from an overpriced cigar, BW’s gone, and it’s just me, the night, and the salsa.
Beach Road
Chapter 50
Loco
WHATEVER I THINK
is best, huh.
I think I get BW’s point, which means another trip to Brooklyn and another
shitty, shitty, bang, bang.
Like his compadres out in the Hamptons, Manny Rodriguez works
“You’re the ballplayer,” he says. “I seen you there. You were a pro.”
“That’s right. For about ten minutes.”
“You got a tape recorder?” he asks.
“No, but I’ve got a pad. I’ll take careful notes for now.”
“Good. Let me hit the bathroom. Then maybe I got a story that could save that tall black boy.”
I wrestle my legal pad out of my case and hurriedly scribble a list of key questions in my barely legible
shorthand.
Stay calm,
I tell myself,
and
listen.
I’ve been lost in my notes, and Manny still isn’t back when the waiter drops the food on the table. I twist
around, and I see that the bathroom door is wide open.
I jump out of my chair and run like a maniac to the street.
I’m just in time to see Manny Rodriguez hop into a cab and roar away up Tenth Avenue. He finger-waves
out the back window at me.
Beach Road
Chapter 49
Loco
THERE’S A GRAY, pebbly beach on the bay side of East Hampton where on Sunday afternoons the
Dominicans, Ecuadorians, and Costa Ricans play volleyball. During the week, they put in seventy hours
mowing lawns, clipping hedges, and skimming pools. At night they cram into ranch houses that look
normal from the street but have been partitioned into thirty cubes. By Sunday afternoon, they’re ready to
explode.
These games are wild. You got drinking, gambling, salsa, and all kinds of over-the-top Latin drama. Every
three minutes or so two brown bantamweights are being pulled apart. Five minutes later they’re patting
each other on the back. Another five minutes, they’re swinging again.
I’m taking in this Latin soap opera from a peeling green bench fifty yards above the fray.
It’s six fifteen, and as always, I’m early.
It’s no accident. This is part of the gig, the required display of
fealty and respect.
Which is fine with me. It gives me time to light my cigar and watch the sailboats tack for home at the
Devon Yacht Club.
I should cut back. The Davidoff torpedo is my third this week. But what’s life without a vice? What’s
life
with
a vice? Did you know Freud smoked half a dozen cigars a day? He also died of mouth cancer, which I
like to think was poetic payback for telling the world that all every guy wants to do is kill his father
and boff his mom. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t need to know that.
Speaking of authority figures, a drumroll please, because here comes mine-
BW
-and he’s right on time, eleven minutes late.
With his three-hundred-dollar Helmut Lang jeans, torn and faded just right, and his God-knows-how-
expensive light-blue cashmere hoodie and week-old growth, he’s looking more like a goddamn weekender
every day. But who’s got the stones to tell him? Not me, bro, and they call me Loco for a reason.
“What’s up?” asks BW, but not in the convivial way most people use it. Out of BW’s mouth, it sounds
more like “what’s your problem?” or “so what’s your problem now?” But this time it’s not just
my
problem, it’s
our
problem, which pisses him off ten times more.
“Apparently, we had company,” I say. “Out behind Wilson’s house.”
“Oh, yeah? Who told you that?”
“Lindgren.”
“That sucks.” For all his peccadilloes, BW has an impressive ability to cut to the chase.
Down in the sand, a drunk volleyballer is pointing at a ball mark and screaming bloody murder in either
Spanish or Portuguese.
“What should I do now, boss?”
“Whatever you think is best.”
“Whatever
I
think is best, BW?”
“And let me know when you’ve done it.”
Then, like a puff of smoke from an overpriced cigar, BW’s gone, and it’s just me, the night, and the salsa.
Beach Road
Chapter 50
Loco
WHATEVER I THINK
is best, huh.
I think I get BW’s point, which means another trip to Brooklyn and another
shitty, shitty, bang, bang.
Like his compadres out in the Hamptons, Manny Rodriguez works
Similar Books
